Did anyone go to Glastonbury in 2005?

[looski]

Hello all you lovely people,

It's dissertation time again (I know, I know), so if you went to Glastonbury 2005, and want a chance to win £25, fill out my questionnaire: www.survey.bris.ac.uk/sussex/glastonbury_05

Every entry who leaves an email address (for contacting winners only, I won't abuse it!) gets a chance to win £25.

Pass the link along to friends and family who went, please!

Thank you everyone! xx

[bexj]

I'm sorry, but I found this questionnaire confusing, the ratings didn't apply to many of the questions, and it seemed to assume that everyone experienced catastrophy. I didn't complete I'm afraid.

[Nottm52Mike]

I have to agree with bexj. Glasto 2005 wasnt a disaster area or a third world refugee camp. Yes a number of people lost some of their stuff and in some cases had their festival spoiled and the rest of us got muddy, but nobody really suffered. I dont understand the slant behind some of the questions, why would we be more/less likely to share food and water before or after the flood, why would that be different to any other year. The water supply wasnt affected and the stalls, cafes etc were all open as normal. The only difference was the risk of getting your feet wet.

Not sure of your time scales but maybe you need to re-think this, Were you there in 2005 (I am guessing from the tone of your questions that you weren't) and what are you trying to get from this.

[looski]

Hi guys,

I know it's a little off, but it's just a dissertation and I'd really appreciate responses - I can't graduate without them.

Me and my supervisor cooked it up together, and the scales have been arranged like that on purpose - telling people how to fill it out would destroy the validity of them. It's an open-to-interpretation thing

No, I didn't go, but I know it's not as dramatic as the questions make out! Again, it's a personal interpretation thing - we want your take on it, not a necessarily forced yes or no question.

It's not changeable now it's launched - I can't do much more than make a personal plea that you fill it out, my graduating depends on you guys!

Thankyou! -Luci xx

[Nottm52Mike]

OK filled it in.

[StoneCircle]

Done

[idontgetoutmuch]

Hi guys,

I know it's a little off, but it's just a dissertation and I'd really appreciate responses - I can't graduate without them.

Me and my supervisor cooked it up together, and the scales have been arranged like that on purpose - telling people how to fill it out would destroy the validity of them. It's an open-to-interpretation thing

No, I didn't go, but I know it's not as dramatic as the questions make out! Again, it's a personal interpretation thing - we want your take on it, not a necessarily forced yes or no question.

It's not changeable now it's launched - I can't do much more than make a personal plea that you fill it out, my graduating depends on you guys!

Thankyou! -Luci xx

[idontgetoutmuch]

I've been to a fair few festivals, including Glast 05

From time to time i've filled in questionaires on this forum and others

This is perhaps the worse set of questions I have ever seen, basically you don't deserve to pass your dissertation with this!

I think that you need to get out more, maybe even get to a festival or two?

And stop with the emotional blackmail.

All I can remember now, nearly six years later. is the beauty and the intensity of the storm and how incredible that we were only separated from it with canvas, and that no other time of my life I would have been or stayed outside during such a storm.

It did devastate some people, and my heart will always go out to them. I do remember the shock of the river flowing through an area I have previously camped on, but for most of us it was festival as normal.

Your survey reflects none of this, sorry. I really do not mean to offend in any way, but it is obvious you have no idea of what occured, or if you do, then it feels to me that you are trying to affect the outcomes by how you are asking your questions.

[glasto-worker]

I am going to make up a Survey just to work out why people make up a survey in the first place.

Your Survey assumes that the whole of Glastonbury was flooded when in fact it was a few specific areas so if a person did not listen to the radio or read the free newspaper they may not have been aware that there was a problem.

The image above was taken 26 th of June 2005 so you can see there was dry areas.

It certainly was not the worst year.

[G1T]

Yep, agree with the above. As someone who writes surveys for part of my living, there are just too many false assumptions in the way those questions are set out and worded for it to be worth filling in really. Sorry.

[pie_and_a_pint]

You seem to be using the weather in 2005 and the subsequent mud and flooding as a natural disaster. It was not. The flooding affected only a small part of the site and only a very few people lost belongings - those people had camped, unfortunately, at the bottom of Pennard Hill which is, er, a hill and thus, due to gravity, flooded. I was camped up on the Big Ground and to be honest, it wasn't even very squelchy. It's only because I got paid on that Friday and needed to get some cash out that I wandered over the Pennard Hill to use the cashpoint - otherwise I'd have had no idea, apart from the delay to the programme on the Pyramid Stage, that there had been any problems other than a spot of mud.

The rain, although very heavy convectional rainfall caused by the very warm days preceding, was concentrated on a short spell of time. The vast majority of the site didn't flood, the vast majority of the grass was dry enough to sit on by Sunday afternoon, and the fact that there was a big queue of people at the Info points on Sunday asking for sunscreen and aftersun should give you some idea of what the weather was actually like.

I don't know what you're studying, but I'm a geographer and I've seen similar lists of questions about major hazard events (earthquakes, floods, hurricanes etc) in the developing world. Glastonbury 2005 was NOT in any way a major weather event on this scale and to be honest I found the survey very bizarre indeed.

[Random Circle]

Indeed, to most of the above. Also, the storm was very well forecast due to the intensely hot weather preceding it. And for those of an astrological bent, it was a full moon the day before, in the sign of Aquarius the water-bearer. On my Gwydion McPagan Moon Calendar, the astrological symbols indicating planetary activity for that weekend looked strikingly as if a huge ton of water was about to be released. Quite interesting, from a retrospective point of view.

Now 2006..that was wet, wet, bloody wet. Constant rainfall; miserable weather indeed. However, through the grey cloud and rain-drenched skies, I did catch a brief glimpse of the fabled Glass Isle of Avalon...but that deserves a thread of its own.

[grumpyhack]

I started doing the survey but found it very tedious and gave up - sorry might try again later when I've got more time.

The thing to remember is that the Glastonbury site is a bowl with an embankment (the old railway line) running through the middle. So water cascaded down the hills and came up against the railway embankment which acted like a dam. Water built up either side leaving the areas immediately alongside under six or more feet of water.

However superb stewarding meant that the stewards went through those encampments as the rain started to get serious and cleared the area of people and moved them to safety.

In the morning when the rain stopped police divers went through the submerged tents expecting to find bodies but all was OK.

I think the way the site recovered and the fact that no one was seriously injured was a tribute to the Glasto organisation,

[Random Circle]

Am with you about 'the bowl' comment above. When I got home, everybody (sic) asked: 'Were you drowned/almost drowned/soaking wet?'. My reply was a diagrammatical explanation, using hands as stage-props: 'Well, the site is shaped like a bowl [cups hands] and we were camped here [points]; so no, we didn't get flooded at all'.

Not sure they quite understood though.

[Milbert]

I lost interest with the pre-rain questions. Sorry. They just seemed loaded to get the answers you wanted.

In the two days I was there before it rained, I was mostly catching up with mates. After the rain, I just drank vodka like a motherf**ker to blot the whole thing out.

[grumpyhack]

Am with you about 'the bowl' comment above. When I got home, everybody (sic) asked: 'Were you drowned/almost drowned/soaking wet?'. My reply was a diagrammatical explanation, using hands as stage-props: 'Well, the site is shaped like a bowl [cups hands] and we were camped here [points]; so no, we didn't get flooded at all'.

Not sure they quite understood though.

[LusciousLucy]

Are you also aware of the geology of the site? I havent looked at the questionnaire as I didnt attend 05 but have attended all the other wet ones since 1997 onwards.

Glastonbury Festival is essentially a clay bowl. Keep filling it with water and after a while a saturation point is met and deep watery mud ensues. This happened in 2007 across the entire site.

In 05, a small area of the site was majorly effected due to an over abundance of rain for a few short hours and there were no proper drainage systems in place back then. The worst of the wetness was at the bottom of a hill that has a bloody great wall up against it (otherwise known as the Railway Track) hence the images looking so awful.

A dissertation on the varying states of mud and how much precipitation can cause the different levels and types and manoeuvrability through the stuff is what I would love to write. Talking with Glasto vets and stall holders about comparisons such as Thursday 9pm in 08 rain compared to Sunday at 7pm in 04 rain and the resulting mud is a conversation I never tire of. The on and off rain in 09...just by listening to it in the tent, some of us knew precisely what to expect on leaving the tent and by understanding how the site reacts to feet, water levels, heat and time, being able to predict exactly what will happen is a true art and skill that many are proud to have.

At the end of the day, the only mud people DONT ever want a repeat of is 1997 mud. Simples. Everything since then has been a walk in the park. 07 was a total joy to be honest and I loved every minute of that week, even when I stacked it on the final night at the top of the Hill of Death.

I might take a look at the questionnaire now

[diddly-dee]

I have just done the questionnaire although, like most posters here, i think the questions are a bit axiomatic and formulated with a preconceived set of prejudices that didn't reflect the reality of my 2005 glastonbury (or, it would seem, the experiences of the rest of the posters in this thread). Both where i was camped and areas of the festival i moved around there was a bit of mud for a day or two, notably along main thoroughfares, but nothing that impeded me and I was oblivious to 'floods' (i don't mean that in a mercenary way, i just didn't know any 'floods' occurred).

[HurrahBrother]

I am going to make up a Survey just to work out why people make up a survey in the first place.

Your Survey assumes that the whole of Glastonbury was flooded when in fact it was a few specific areas so if a person did not listen to the radio or read the free newspaper they may not have been aware that there was a problem.

The image above was taken 26 th of June 2005 so you can see there was dry areas.

It certainly was not the worst year.

[Milbert]

2005 wasn't a natural disaster. It was just bad weather.

Personally, I found the conditions in 1998 to be worse, with rain throughout the whole weekend. By Saturday there was nowhere to sit down unless you found a spare bench or overturned bin, and they were like gold dust. People were lurking around near them and diving in as soon as someone moved.

[looski]

Hi everyone,

These are all great comments, but please, fill out the questionnaire and use the "anything else" box in the survey to give feedback, else I can't do anything about it. If you put all of these into the survey, me and my supervisor can steer the research better in future. (psychology, for those who are interested).

Cheers, luci.

[glasto-worker]

Hi everyone,

These are all great comments, but please, fill out the questionnaire and use the "anything else" box in the survey to give feedback, else I can't do anything about it. If you put all of these into the survey, me and my supervisor can steer the research better in future. (psychology, for those who are interested).

Cheers, luci.

[Icewulf]

I didn't go in 2005 but this questionnaire is terrible.

There's too many irrelevant questions, and also too many vaguely similar questions: i.e. Did you enjoy the festival/did you have fun...

A lot of the questions have several nuances and I found myself falling asleep just looking at it.

This is typical of a Psych student. At this rate you probably don't even deserve a 3rd. But if your supervisor helped you construct the questionnaire then I guess maybe their grading system is different to ours.

Good luck, but don't expect any sympathy from anyone here.

[Stuzo]

Is it just me that thinks the survey relies far to much on remembering exactly what happened 6 years ago? Even though it was my first Glastonbury (been to every one since) they still all blur into one.

Anyway, I thought I'd share what I wrote for the first box (note: I soon lost my enthusiasm for this questionnaire by the time I got to the 2nd question)

Late on Thursday night (otherwise known as the early hours of Friday morning) It began to rain. In the distance we could hear thunder while flashes of lightening showed the strobe lighting who was boss. We counted the time between crack and flash and using the 1 mile per second rule of thumb estimated the storm to be about 13 miles away. We made our way back from the stone circle and while walking through from Green Futures into Penards we encountered an impromptu river running down the hill towards the railway track. We continued through it and found our way back to our tent in the Park Home Ground. Having been up for about 24 hours I didn't have much difficulty drifting off to sleep to the chorus of claps of thunder and flashes of lightening, but woke fairly early on Friday morning to what, from my relative safety under a thin layer of waterproof man-made fabric, sounded like someone had taken advantage of my deep slumber to reposition my tent under a waterfall.

It didn't take long before it became clear that I wasn't going to get any more sleep so being the well prepared former boy scout that I am I donned my waterproofs and went out to examine the extent of the storms. From the park home ground I walked down to the railway track and headed east. The portable toilets in the north west corner of Pennards were installed in rows back to back and had been tethered down at the front but not the back. As the water had risen they tipped forward pivoting on their tethering points, the rows parting like the waters for Moses.

Continuing along the railway track it became clear that the water that had flowed down from the hills had nowhere to go once it reached the raised track. It was a good 3 foot deep and still rising reaching it's deepest point in the North East corner of Pennards the other side of the track to the Glade. I continued around the site to examine the damage to the dance east tent and acoustic tent. Rumours were abound in typical Glastonbury style that the Pyramid had been hit during the night.

On the walk back along the track to camp I witnessed a man diving under water desperately trying to save something form his submerged tent, after several dives he burst through the surface tension with a can of beer clasped above his head to cheers from his small but appreciative audience who had amassed above him on the track. I was delighted when I found that this act had been preserved on youtube:

A friend of a friend had been camping in one of the worst effected areas and we invited him back to our camp where he begged and borrowed enough dry bits regain a modicum of comfort.

[precious_lillywhite]

I'm losing the will to live, I finished the questionnaire...

It wasn't a disaster zone where people didn't have food or shelter for days on end all the stalls were still open, I don't think doing a questionnaire about something when you didn't even attend was a good idea at all